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[GemCraft chapter 0] An Advanced Guide

### Advanced Guide (level 201-1000)
**The RO field – why more?**
If you have so much mana that you cannot possibly spend it all, why do you need more? For the mana pooling. 2x the number of RO gems will double your score through mana pooling.
**Gem Transmutation**
What do we do on maps that don’t have Red or Orange components? Can we still build a good mana farm? The answer is “Yes, absolutely.” We can create 3 Orange gems out of 1 Orange gem and 3 pure gems by transmuting the gem. You drop a gem bomb on a row of gems. Be careful not to lose the particular gem component!
**The Benefit of Lag**
Once you have some RO supergems working in traps, you probably start to encounter lag. This is a double-edged sword, because it can work for you or against you. With enough lag, you have more time to think and perform all the necessary actions. You can also trigger what is known as the Interrupt Cat, where you quickly perform a lot of actions, and Flash does not move frames, instead performing these actions before moving on. However, the Interrupt Cat can be very unpredictable, and you can find your game lagging \>20 actions behind.
**The Benefit of Leaks**
Leaking monsters is not a bad thing. It helps you gain **more mana** because the RO gems, which would have fired at 3 monsters perhaps, can now shoot at 5-6 monsters that leaked. Leaks are great for maximizing the amount of mana that you can earn. Also, it allows you to anger more – if you’re not leaking monsters, then you’re not angering enough.
**Overangering and Giant Monsters**
You will encounter “Giant Monsters.” These are special waves of only a few monsters that are just what the name suggests – Larger than normal. When one of these monsters dies, the screen shakes furiously. When one of these waves comes, anger it more than the normal wave. If angered optimally, you will receive tens, even hundreds of millions of points PER giant monster.
**Estimations of Angering**
The formula for angering is
Health (HP): increases by 5\*grade %
Armor: Increases by 25%, regardless of grade
Score: is multiplied by (1 + 0.15\*grade) / # of angers
1. of creatures: Increases by 3 + 2\*grade creatures (until 20 angers have been performed).
**Speedhack and Mouse Recorders**
Gemcrafters have effectively used Speedhack and Mouse Recorders to score billions of points. Speedhack is a function of the program Cheat Engine, and it slows down the frames, allowing you to build mana gems at a much more relaxed pace. Mouse recorders allow a set of keyboard and mouse actions to be performed very quickly (some mouse recorders only record and play back in real-time).
Some macroing programs that have been effectively been used:
Axife Mouse Recorder (only plays back up to 3x speed).
Autohotkey
Mouse Recorder Pro 2
Out of these, I personally recommend Mouse Recorder Pro 2. It is free, and it doesn’t require any previous programming knowledge. Most importantly, it is fast.
**RO\_\_ gems and R\_\_ gems**
It is possible to create non-RO supergems that perform other purposes.
The ROL supergem – Steals 45% more mana than your standard RO supergem.
The ROY supergem – Steals 25% more mana than your standard RO supergem, but has a larger range than ROL or RO supergems.
The RB and ROB supergem – a few of these can slow an entire track of monsters by 75% (not 96% like the specials indicate). These are extremely helpful in survival and helpful in making your RO gems more effective.
The RC and ROC supergem – Capable of holding several monsters indefinitely.
The RP supergem – lowers the armor of gems, making each hit deal more damage. Very useful early on.
**Map #78**
What is the best map for a player your level? Where can you rack up the greatest score? The answer lies in Map #78 – the Last level. Why? You can stop at any time, and the HP curve is slower (you should definitely be able to get up to Wave 150, if not higher). The track is about twice as long as a normal level you’re used to – it has 103 spaces.
**Damage Gems**
Once you have a full track, it is necessary to build a damage gem. This is a gem that deals a ton of damage. Make sure your damage gem has a Red component, and a Yellow Component is very helpful as well. The best damage gem is a Prismatic Supergem.
Prismatic gems max out at grade 11 (I have maxed the firing speed on prismatics on as little as grade 8. You combine two grade 7s with a bunch of grade 1s until it hits the cap, then combine those.). Do not build more than a grade 11, as the damage per gem combination actually goes DOWN.
Prismatic gems have completely different mechanics from what you’re used to. The specials are variable – it is up to you to “align” their specials. You align your gems by dragging grade 6 pure gems onto your prismatic (so for an alignment Yellow-Lime-Orange-Red, you would drag a Grade 6 Red to combine, a Grade 6 Orange, a Grade 6 Lime, and a Grade 6 Yellow onto your prismatic). The optimal alignment for dealing damage for a prismatic is Yellow-Lime-(you can put an Orange or Cyan here)-Red. You will place this gem in a trap – because of the Red component, it deals more damage. This is a gem with 1012 firing speed, hitting up to 5 targets at once, and having a 66% chance of extra hit.
**Angering Strategies**
I recommend making your total monster health (the sum of all monster health in a wave), 10,000 times the max damage of your properly hued and aligned prismatic gems. Don’t worry about armor – the difference is negligible. Anger significantly less for Swarm waves, which give no experience. Anger significantly more for waves with fewer monsters (8-monster waves). Anger Boss waves a ton – anger them 5x this amount. Anger Twin boss waves 10x this amount.
**100 billion points**
Scores this high require a lot of mana gems – I recommend a full track of 100 on map #78. You can use RO gems until you have 600K mana, at which point you will replace them with ROL gems (if you so desire). Once you have a full track, mana pool to 1 million max mana; then start building your supergem. There are various strategies that you can employ. You can focus on building damage in only a few gems or you can use up to 10 (there is no real advantage to building more or fewer damage gems unless it interferes with mana pooling).
**The plan:**
Waves 1-20: Maximize your mana farm with RO gems. Then pool as much as possible. Don’t worry about monsters unless banishment costs start to skyrocket.
Waves 21-30: Score your first billion points at least by wave 30. Once you have a 600K mana pool, start replacing your RO gems with ROL. Also, feel free to start building your prismatic
Waves 31-40: Continue to increase your prismatic damage. Make sure to mana pool a lot.
Waves 41-60: If your prismatic damage is less than 200K in tower, you will be “maxing out” here (not a guarantee). Anger these waves a little more than normal and use higher grades for waves 42 and 54.
Waves 61-80: If your prismatic damage is between 200K and 1 M in tower, you will probably be “maxing out” here (not a guarantee). Read the above.
Waves 81-120: If your prismatic damage is more than 1 M in tower, you will be “maxing out” here. One expert gemcrafter jumped from 3 Trillion points to 8 Trillion points on his 228 run here.
Waves 121-140: There are likely your last anger-able waves.
Waves 141 and onward: If you’re going for the 228 challenge, continue onward and kill these creeps.
Once you have accomplished this, definitely write to the forums about your accomplishments (include pictures).
I was thinking of writing an “Expert Guide” (level 1000 to perfection), but it would be redundant with what was already in the forums. So feel free to browse. I recommend reading the 228-wave thread, the 512-wave thread, and Perfect Optimized Gemcraft Play threads, because they contain interesting information and strategies other than the straightforward #78 strategy for scoring massive points.
Warning – These games longer than 100 B points may take several days to complete.
For an example of an image – look at XCecil’s run in the “All 512 Waves” thread.

Holy shit. nice start. How might one obtain this Speedhack? I got a few macros thanks to mouse recorder Pro 2 (and you) I got a macro to combind all of my gems into a grade 11 gem, and i got a super gem making one where i put the gem i want super’d in the top left corner then i combind gems 1 by 1 at light speed on to it. (on to it. i dont move that gem at all). and another for making 6 quick ROL grade 7 gems. Also… what gem allignment’s do you recommend, and how to you execute them, which order do you put the gems in? 1 more thing… your awesome.

It’s a function of CheatEngine. Don’t cheat, just use the Speedhack function. Unless you want to align frequently, don’t combine onto the gem, drag the gem onto other gems.
I have a macro for transmuting a whole sheet of gems (except the top row, which I sometimes use for storing grade 6s and miscellaneous gems) and combining that into another gem (this has a wide variety of uses, from creating RB 700 sec. slow gems to creating RO gems fast; however, it is often subject to contamination). I have one for creating and combining an entire sheet of grade 6 gems. Finally, I have one for making a grade 12 (I make my grade 11s on my own), a grade 13, a grade 14, a grade 15, and a grade 16. These are the gems I use for angering – no other purpose.
You can see more pictures – I posted some on all 512 waves. I would recommend reading the All 229 Waves thread, because it contains valuable information about gem alignment, hue-ing, etc.

I would experiment with various strategies. Like in that video, I had it set at 0.3 I think, but then after I maxed 1 gem, I had it set at 0.1 or so. I find that macros work better if you have the game paused without smoke.
Above all, you want low numbers like 0.05.
When I build firepower, I think I will have it at 0 and just run the macro a few times; then let it run again at a slow speed. Don’t uncheck speedhack. Weird lags have killed many games.

so im useing mouse recorder pro 2 for my macro program. So i have to click each time i want to do something (no hotkeys happen to be available). What do you do in your firepower macro? Click create gem, click grade 6, repeat till full inv, then have your super gem into top left courner, then combind your gem with other gems? and repeat?

No, I recorded the entire sequence, including gem creation. And also, use shortcuts – they’re much easier.
Shift+3 click for a full sheet of 6s, 4 for mana pool, 5 for trap creation, Shift + 6 to create grades higher than 6, 2 for towers, Shift+1 for multiple Gem Bombs, etc.
I like to use the Mini Toolbar (right click on the icon on the bottom with the blue circle and the pointer – the Mouse Recorder Pro 2 symbol, and click Mini Toolbar).

@ lapisblaze: this is a worthy thread. (and a slow forum)
@ mahg400
my own advice: don’t make higher than grade 11 untill you have at least 400,000 mana capacity, then combine your supergems with grade 13’s (not with grade 12’s, grade 13’s; this will preserve the damage of the supergem)…13’s are more stable if you decide to combine with a mixture of grade 6-9’s.
oh, and it’s ctrl+click to instant-fill the entire tray with gems.

actually i was asking what is “maxing out”
“If your prismatic damage is less than 200K in tower, you will be “maxing out” here (not a guarantee). Anger these waves a little more than normal and use higher grades for waves 42 and 54.”

you cannot “max out” the damage. however, to get the kind of damage to defeat all 228 waves of map 78, you’ll need to:
1. get a R/O mana farm trap with maxed rate. (red skill needs maxed for best results).
2. add additional mana farming gems (maxed rate or bulk gems, it doesn’t much matter at that point.)
3. make grade 11 prismatic gems with the OMG amount of mana you get, and stuff them with grade 6+.